California woman sentenced to 57 months for mortgage fraud

An accountant from California was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution after being convicted of mortgage fraud in Southern Nevada earlier this year, officials with the U.S. attorney’s office said.

Carmen Denise Mosley of Granada Hills, Calif., was convicted May 6 of one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and two counts of bank fraud.

Court records and evidence introduced at trial show that Mosley, 44, and co-defendant Zulfiya Karimova, 33, of Cupertino, Calif., attempted to obtain mortgage loans from financial institutions by falsifying information on buyers' loan applications for about a year starting in November 2006.

They would also provide supporting documentation.

Mosley and Karimova would cause money from loans to be disbursed to them so they could use it for their benefit, officials said.

Karimova caused buyers to apply for mortgage loans and would falsify information about their income and assets on their application while Mosley provided fraudulent tax documents to support the false representations on the buyers' applications, officials said.

In 2006 and 2007, Karimova and Mosley used loan money from financial institutions to buy three homes in Las Vegas.

The buyers defaulted on the loans, which caused lenders to lose more than $1 million, officials said.

Karimova is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 20. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud and bank fraud before the trial.